


Displacement Scenario (The Interplanetary Remix)

by runningondreams



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, M/M, Outer Space, portals and teleporters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-26 13:51:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17747078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/runningondreams/pseuds/runningondreams
Summary: Every time Tony pits himself against death, he wins.Well, nearly every time. He’s still kicking around, anyway.





	Displacement Scenario (The Interplanetary Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Snow was falling [Art]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670383) by [Cachette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cachette/pseuds/Cachette). 



Every once in a while, Tony plays a game he calls: What will kill me first? The players include “Whoever’s on team Iron Man right now” and of course, those perennial opponents, “Agents of death.” The object is to identify and neutralize the agents of death before Tony Stark dies. The biggest, most important rule is: Don’t Panic.

It’s seen him through a lot of hard moments. There was that time he got struck by lightning mid-air and the suit systems failed. There have been a lot of close calls with his heart, and the chestplate, and running out of power. He’s been crashed in the Savage Land, surrounded by things that literally wanted to eat him. He’s been mind-controlled. His own armor gained sentience and tried to take over his life, which meant that for a short time team Iron Man was, weirdly, Tony Stark without Iron Man. He’s been beaten, and stabbed, and electrocuted, and literally shot in the back. And then, of course, there’s that old nemesis, alcohol. 

Somehow, team Iron Man manages to pull through and he gets to live. Usually. He’s been told of at least one time death actually won, but he doesn’t remember _being dead,_ and he’s certainly alive now, so he’s not sure if it really counts.

In the current round, he’s alive. For the moment. 

According to his armor readings, Spiral’s dumped him somewhere between Earth and Mars, drifting in the shadow Earth casts. There’s nothing to hold onto. Nothing to build and shape except what he brought with him: His body, his brain, his armor. He can’t even count on gravity or atmosphere. The dark sphere of the Earth hangs before him, too far away to have a hope of reaching it on his own. He’s spinning, slowly, counter to the Earth’s own spin. The planet slides out of view and he sees only stars for a long stretch of moments before home comes back around.

The odds aren’t looking too great for team Iron Man. The space between planets is dark and cold. He could freeze to death, or go mad trying to affect his surroundings in a meaningful way. He could spin and drift long enough, potentially, to see the sun again, and go blind, thus losing about 83% of his ability to affect the suit’s systems. He could be irradiated, cooked in his shiny red metal shell. He could die of carbon dioxide poisoning, when his supply of O2 runs out and the filters reach capacity. If, by some miracle, all those systems hold up or he’s able to optimize them for his new circumstance, he might die of dehydration. 

And that’s just if nothing _new_ happens. If some incredibly tiny pieces of interplanetary debris don’t punch through the armor and expose him to real vacuum. If Spiral doesn’t pop back into this portion of space and stick a sword through him. If some new empire of aliens doesn’t choose this moment to invade Earth and disintegrate him as they arrive. Etc., etc., etc. 

Still. No point giving up now. He activates his homing beacon, because this usually goes better if there’s more people on team Iron Man than just him, and he sends out a message: _Iron Man to all parties, do you read?_ Then he does what he can to extend his air supply and optimize the temperature regulation system. It’s not much—if he could take the suit apart he’d be able to build something much more efficient—but he can’t do that, because it’s literally keeping him alive. 

Rock. Hard place. 

Static buzzes in his ear. A few hard consonants. A vowel. More static. He calls up the communications UI and tries to hunt down the signal.

“--Man, come in—” 

Closer.

“Iron Man, do you read?” It’s Steve’s voice, slightly distorted. Tony grins, relief flooding through his limbs. At least he hasn’t also been misplaced in time. That possible application of Spiral’s powers had been starting to eat at him.

“I’m here, Cap. Good to know we didn’t _all_ get popped into vacuum.”

“You’re in _space?_ ” There’s another blast of static and distortion. “—Baxter Building. Reed’s been scanning for the rest of the team, but they’re all on-planet.”

“I’m a decent distance outside Earth orbit range, on the dark side. Guess I must have pissed Spiral off more than the rest of you.”

“You do seem—talent for that,” Steve agrees. “We’re—SHIELD transports but—different solution for you.”

Tony messes with the comms settings some more, but he can’t do anything about the turn of the Earth or its distribution of satellites. “You’re breaking up, Cap, I’m getting a lot of interference.”

There’s a long, long pause where Steve doesn’t say anything at all. It gives Tony time to check the rest of his systems again; the readings are less than reassuring. Some of his more sensitive sensors are starting to go on the fritz.

“Cap? You still there?”

More silence. Tony counts inside his head, measuring his breaths carefully. Don’t panic, that’s the cardinal rule. Panic can be deadly. He closes his eyes and counts, and breathes, and waits.

“Is this better?” Steve asks, crystal clear in his ear. Tony has to swallow down the tension in his throat before he can answer.

“Yeah,” he says, and coughs. “Yeah, that’s much better.”

“Reed is working on getting you back,” Steve says. “Something about portals. As soon as we get a lock on you, we’ll be good to go.”

That they don’t have a lock on him _now_ is somewhat worrying. They haven’t tested the beacons at this kind of range before. A considerable oversight, now that Tony has the right perspective. But Steve doesn’t sound worried, so Tony won’t worry him now.

“Good to hear.” He winces. He’s almost certain Steve can recognize the false cheer in his voice. He’s not at his best, it must be said. He’s sweating, and he can’t afford to. He has to battle down the urge to fly closer to Earth. He can’t get near enough to make a difference, not this far out, and it’ll only burn energy that could be going to the temperature regulators instead.

He risks 2 seconds of burn anyway. Enough to start him drifting closer. Enough to stop his spin. If he’s going to die out here, he’d prefer to have his last sight be the planet he’s spent so much time trying to save.

“You’re going to be fine, Tony,” Steve says. Captain America at his most reassuring. “You’ve got your beacon, right?”

“Yeah, it’s beeping away. Not sure how long it’s going to last though. Systems are starting to drop.”

“We’ll get there, just hang on.” 

Long minutes pass. Steve fills him in on the rest of the team—disoriented but mostly fine or will be—and the status of the initial mission—failure; Spiral and the rest of the Brotherhood got away clean. Tony listens and watches the numbers. Gas ratios inside the helmet. Radiation readings outside it. The clock, ticking over every millisecond until he dismisses it as too much of a distraction.

His concentration fragments. He can’t think of anything else to do, any way to help himself fix this, not anything _viable_ , anyway. For the moment, team Iron Man is in Reed’s hands. And Steve’s. 

He wishes Steve was _here_. He’s always better at this game when Steve is nearby.

Of course, if Steve were really here, Tony would be towing a frozen corpse. So really, the current situation is vastly preferable. An ocean of darkness stretching between them and Steve’s voice in his ear is infinitely better than no distance at all and Steve dead.

More waiting. Steve stops talking, but Tony can hear vague voices, too faint to parse. Steve’s talking with Reed, probably. 

He feels so stupidly useless and he _hates_ that. What good is his brain out here? What good are his hands? The oxygen levels are starting to dip as carbon dioxide climbs. Radiation levels are rising. The temperature inside the suit is dropping steadily, half a degree every few minutes. Which one will kill him is rapidly becoming an academic exercise: One of them _will_. This could be it. For real. No more Iron Man. No more Tony Stark. Just an asphyxiated icicle of a superhero, plunged into the freezing black.

Like Steve. In the ice, all those years ago. 

“Hey, Cap?”

A pause.

“I’m here, Iron Man.”

“Is this what it was like for you?”

“What do you mean?” 

Tony makes a face. Of course that doesn’t make sense. Steve’s not in his head. It was a pointless thing to ask, anyway, and he doesn’t want to explain. “Nevermind,” he says. Besides, at least Steve had gone down preventing a loss of life. Tony hadn’t stopped Spiral doing _anything_.

“You’re getting through this, Avenger,” Steve says. “That’s an order.”

Tony makes a noise that’s almost a laugh. “I’ll do my best. Been doing my best. But I’m still just a guy in a suit.” He watches the HUD display flicker and dance. “Very, very much in a suit. A suit not intended for long exposure to open space. And I’m no super soldier.”

Another pause.

“Reed says he has your signal.” Steve sounds more muted now. “He’s working on the portal.”

That’s good, probably. Of course, Tony’s a little more familiar with Reed’s portal tech than Steve is. It can be—finicky. 

The HUD flickers again, then dies. Tony blows out a long, slow breath. 

“Tony?” _Now_ Steve sounds worried. “Keep talking, okay?”

“What shall we talk about Steve?” Tony forces himself to sound cheerful. “I could tell you the many, many ways I’ll be improving the armor after this. Or hey, have you chosen a movie for Thursday yet?” He keeps up a steady stream of words, jumping topics from the team to new tech to the last audiobook he listened to. He doesn’t say what he _wants_ to say: _I’m sorry_. _I love you_. _I wish we had more time_. 

“Tony?” Steve’s voice is stained. “Tony, answer me.”

Tony blinks and realizes his eyes were closed. His eyelashes are cold, and he’s shivering. His head feels foggy. His heart is beating too fast.

“Cap?” His lips move, but no sound comes out. His throat is dry. He coughs, then chokes, gasping on air that makes him feel worse. 

“Tony, come in. Tony—Reed we have to—” 

Steve’s voice slips away.

***

Tony wakes to soft beeps and the unfortunately-familiar feel of an oxygen mask strapped to his face. He drags his eyes open and waits for them to focus. The space above him is domed and covered with oddly angled tiles that look like plastic or ceramic, not Styrofoam. The Baxter Building medical unit, if he’s any judge of ceiling architecture. 

He can feel warm fingers linked through his, and he can just make out blonde hair and a sliver of blue uniform at the edge of his vision. He turns his head, wincing, just to confirm.

Steve. Holding his hand and dozing at his bedside. He looks tired, even asleep, with dark circles under his eyes and lines drawn deep in his face. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all directions.

Tony squeezes his fingers gently, and watches the rise and fall of Steve’s chest, and breathes.

Team Iron Man wins. 


End file.
